This application claims the benefit of Korean Patent Application No. 2002-29308, filed May 27, 2002, in the Korean Intellectual Property Office, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference.
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an ink cartridge identifying apparatus of an inkjet printer which selectively mounts one of several kinds of ink cartridges therein to print an image, and particularly, to an ink cartridge identifying apparatus identifying a kind of an ink cartridge mounted in a carrier of an inkjet printer.
2. Description of the Related Art
In general, when transferring a printing paper, an inkjet printer discharges an ink droplet to the printing paper through an ink cartridge which is mounted in a carriage that is spaced apart from an upper surface of the printing paper to slide over the printing paper in order to form an image on the printing paper. Currently, different kinds of ink cartridges, such as a mono cartridge containing ink in a single color, a color cartridge containing ink in at least two colors, a photo cartridge containing photo ink, or the like, can be selectively mounted in the carriage to print a color image as well as black and white images. Further, the inkjet printer, which is capable of printing photo-like high quality images, is generalized.
In order to obtain high quality images from such an inkjet printer, appropriate control operations have to be carried out depending on what kind of ink cartridge the ink cartridge is. Thus, it is necessary to determine the kind of ink cartridge mounted in the carriage.
Referring to FIGS. 1 and 2, a conventional ink cartridge identifying apparatus includes a first contact node part 120 which is prepared in a flexible printed circuit (FPC) 110 that is attached to a body of an ink cartridge 100, a second contact node part 150 which is prepared in a contact part 140 that is prepared in a carriage 130 mounted with the ink cartridge 100 therein and contacts the FPC 110, and which is connected to the first contact node part 120, and a micro processing unit (MPU) 160 which is connected to the second contact node part 150.
The ink cartridge 100 includes a plurality of discharging units (not shown) which discharge ink. The MPU 160 controls timing for discharging the ink, an amount of the discharged ink, and the like. Thus, the ink cartridge 100 includes the FPC 110 which has a plurality of electrical contact nodes connecting the discharging units to the MPU 160.
When the ink cartridge 100 is mounted in the carriage 130, the first contact node part 120 is connected to the second contact node part 150. Thus, as shown in FIG. 2, contact nodes a, b, and c are connected to contact nodes d, e, and f, respectively. Here, since the contact node f is ground, the contact node c connected thereto is also ground. The contact nodes d and e are supplied with powers Vc of 5V through resistances R and connected to input nodes g and h of the MPU 160, respectively.
The contact nodes a and b of the first contact node part 120 are selectively connected to the contact node c inside the FPC 110 depending on a kind of the ink cartridge 100. Thus, depending on whether the contact nodes a and b are ground, i.e., whether the contact nodes a and b are connected to the contact node c, voltages of 5V or 0V are applied to the input nodes g and h of the MPU 160.
If only the contact node a is connected to the contact node c, a voltage of 0V is applied to the input node g and thus a low signal L is input to the input node g, and a voltage of 5V is applied to the input node h and thus a high signal H is input to the input node h. If only the contact node b is connected to the contact node c, the high signal H is input to the input node g and the low signal L is input to the input node h. If both of the contact nodes a and b are connected to the contact node c, the low signal L is input to both of the input nodes g and h.
Using this relationship, in a mono cartridge containing ink in a single color, only the contact node a is connected to the contact node c, in a color cartridge containing ink in at least two colors, only the contact node b is connected to the contact node c, and in a photo cartridge, both of the contact nodes a and b are connected to the contact node c. Then, high signals H or low signals L are input to the input nodes g and h depending on whether the contact nodes a and b are connected to the contact node c, and the MPU 160 determines the kind of the ink cartridge 110 mounted in the carriage 130 by using the high signals H or the low signals L.
However, in the above-described ink cartridge identifying apparatus, the first contact node part 120, in which a connection between the contact nodes a and b and the contact node c varies depending on the kind of the ink cartridge 100, is formed in the FPC 110. Thus, the electrical contact node structure of the FPC 110 of the ink cartridge 100 becomes complicated.
To solve the above and the other problems, it is an aspect of the present invention to provide an ink cartridge identifying apparatus which can identify what kind of cartridge an ink cartridge is mounted in a carriage, by identifying an identifying unit formed on a body of the ink cartridge without installing an electrical contact node structure in a flexible printed circuit (FPC) of the ink cartridge.
Additional aspects and advantages of the invention will be set forth in part in the description which follows and, in part, will be obvious from the description, or may be learned by practice of the invention.
Accordingly, to achieve the above and/or the other aspects, there is provided an ink cartridge identifying apparatus of a printer which is capable of selectively mounting two or more kinds of ink cartridges therein for printing. The ink cartridge identifying apparatus includes an identifying unit, a sensing unit, and a micro processing unit. The identifying unit is prepared on a body of the ink cartridge. The sensing unit is prepared in a carriage mounted with the ink cartridge therein so as to sense the identifying unit. The micro processing unit identifies what kind of cartridge the ink cartridge is, by using signals detected from the sensing unit.
The identifying unit includes at least one protrusion piece which selectively protrudes from the body of the ink cartridge depending on the kind of the ink cartridge.
The identifying unit includes at least one reflective surface which is selectively prepared on the body of the ink cartridge depending on the kind of the ink cartridge.